Year-end Tax Planning – Individuals

A checklist of a few items to examine further, before year-end.

• Are there some small transactions that collectively might help either reduce your income to a lower tax bracket or reduce the adjusted taxable income to enable access to offsets or liability to surcharges?
• Ensuring personal superannuation contributions are received and cleared by 30th June.  
• Are there any capital gains that might be reduced by converting an unrealised capital loss into a realised capital loss?
• Are there any expenses that may be paid shortly that can be paid prior to year end?  Repairs to a rental property are a typical example.
• Donations paid in June have slightly better tax impact than donations paid in July and remember philanthropic arrangements are akin to deciding how your taxes are spent.
• Do you have any Higher Education Loan Programme or similar debts that could be reduced with a discount, rather than a compulsory deduction on the tax return?
• Remember the business loss rules now include $250,000 “drop dead” test.  Whilst you might pass all the other tests, if the adjusted taxable income is more than $250,000 the business loss will quarantined.

AcctWeb